


Bittle Family Stories

by Airplanesandcookies (Mosgirllee)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Always ends on a positive note, Family Dynamics, Gen, Questionable First Reactions, Shorts from tumblr, supportive family, supportive parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 16:06:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17025804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosgirllee/pseuds/Airplanesandcookies
Summary: These are a collection of short stories from Tumblr related to the Bittle Family.Chapters are one shots.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Eric’s mom isn’t supportive, but Coach is.

At this moment, Eric realizes that he may spend too much time on Twitter, given that he finds himself thinking in 140 characters and hashtags.

It’s Tuesday at 11pm. Do you know where your parents are?  
#whatareyoudoinghere

He hopes that he has enough sense not to actually say it out loud, but he can’t be sure of anything at the moment. He could be hallucinating for all he knows. He hasn’t slept or eaten enough in the three days since.

Coach is currently standing on Jack’s apartment doorstep holding a foil covered pie dish, wearing his deeply creased strategy scowl normally only seen on the sidelines of a particularly grueling football game.

“Junior.” And Coach thrusts the pie into Eric’s hands.

Eric reflexively catches the tin and opens his mouth to say something, but only air comes out in a questioning whoosh.

Coach’s scowl is still familiar and unsettling, but it’s not directed at him. Coach is looking at the floor at his dusty sneakers and kahkis. He looks like every weekday evening from high school when he came home red faced and tired from an afternoon of yelling at student athletes to push harder and faster before he would wash up for dinner. 

For lack of a better greeting, Eric asks,“Did you come here straight from work?” which is better than asking, “What the hell are you doing here?” Or “How did you know where to find me?” But his father standing in the doorstep is crazy and impossible and too much unless he took a flight from freakin’ Georgia to come to Providence.

His dad grimaces and gives the smallest of nods and shifts from foot to foot and Eric, despite everything that has just happened, his manners and upbringing reappear, and he stands to the side and ushers his father into the apartment. 

Hearing the door, Jack pads in quietly from the bedroom, dressed in his pajama bottoms and an old threadbare grey Samwell t-shirt. He takes one look at Coach and Eric watches his face frost over and rearrange itself into something better suited for a game day face-off.

Like a spectator at a tennis match, Eric quickly turns to his father who is unimpressed and unintimidated back to Jack who is not going to back down at all. He has a moment where he pictures them both on the ice, his father in football pads and Jack in hockey gear, fighting.

The silence is suffocating and Eric is dizzy with tension and confusion and a large helping of heart crushing hurt. The words squeeze out of his mouth.

“You didn’t have to come all this way with a passive aggressive pie.” 

That breaks the standoff of frowning and both men turn to him, both awkward and contrite, in an eerie mirror of each other.

“Junior, that’s an “I’m sorry” pie.”

Eric peaks under the foil and it’s a brown disaster of burnt sugar and barely recognized preserved peaches from MooMaw pantry. 

“It really is.” Eric mumbles and immediately blanches at complete and utter breakdown of his verbal parental filter. Maybe it shattered during that horrible conversation with his mother. But he suddenly feels broken.

His father starts to reach his arm out before stopping midway. He looks so old, much older than he looked this past summer. “You are absolutely right. It is a sorry pie. In my defense, I haven’t baked anything in about twenty years when I was trying to help your grandmother when she broke her wrist around the same time you were born. I’ve been banned from the kitchen for two decades.” 

It smells good though. “I tried to follow your recipe, but I didn’t have a lot of time before my flight. I may have tried to rush things a bit with upping the oven temperature.”

“That explains it.”

Jack, perfect Jack, steps in between Eric and his father, and gives him a questioning look of “what do you want me to do?”. Since Eric doesn’t know, he shrugs, wild eyed and confused. Jack takes the pie tin from Eric and walks into his open kitchen and puts it on the counter. He turns his back, and starts making coffee. Clearly within ear shot, but giving the illusion of privacy. Actions saying, “I will let you handle it, but I have your back.”

Coach follows a step behind from the foyer into the apartment and takes a slow look around. 

The apartment is completely different from when Eric first visited in August. Before, it was a gray and empty slate. Jack had no real idea on how to furnish an real life adult apartment, let alone something that should be worthy of a world class celebrity athlete. Bitty showed up with a Pinterest board, enthusiasm and a plan. Jack spent a small fortune on plain but comfortable grey couches, a few chairs, a ridiculous bedroom set, and of course the high end kitchen with every amenity a chef from Food Network could ever need. Eric had filled in the extras. He printed a few of Jack’s favorite photos and framed them, including a few candids of Jack and the SMH team. He saved their selfie for the bedroom’s nightstand. There were colorful throws, coordinated pillows and tall lamps. 

His father puts in hands into his pockets and nods to himself for a moment. “I should have been here sooner, but it took me a couple of days to get the story out of your mother.”

Right. It’s been three days and he still feels like he is in a vortex where words come at him like shrapnel. He doesn’t know how long he’s been huddled inside of himself replaying her accusations.

Coaches face does something complicated and his lips move before any words come out as he shapes what he wants to say, trying it out before committing. “Here’s the thing, I read this book a while ago…something your Aunt Rebecca recommended from her pastor. Something on and about Love Languages and I thought that I haven’t been real good at talking to you. Anyway, I think that your language is service and that made sense to me cause you have been real good at taking care of people and I thought that maybe if I made you something, then it would better than just calling up and saying…stuff. So. umm. Yeah.”

“I don’t understand at all.” and Eric didn’t. Because this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. 

“Look, Junior. I’m trying to say, I love you and I’m sorry and it may not seem like it now, but this will all work out between you and your mamma.” words rushing out.

“She was so mad.” And that was at the cruelest and hardest part of the whole blow up.

“And your Moo Maw had some real choice words for her once she found out about your conversation. Her ears are probably still ringing.”

“Moo Maw knows?” Eric yelped.

Coach gave a level look. “Yes. She had that computer class at the Senior Center. She follows you on Twitter and watches your vlog.”

Eric needed to sit. Now. He needed to sit now because the room was spinning and Jack was practically carrying him to the couch and Coach was close behind them both, running into the kitchen looking for water and Eric felt his eyes start to fill up. 

He tuned back in to hear Coach steadily muttering, “I don’t understand how you could be so surprised when you go ahead and put most of your business on the internet. Boy, you got like two thousand followers, of course some of the people that love you best are going to go and see about you. She said that she and her friends have been sending you recipes that she liked for the past year. When was the last time you ate? Are you getting enough protein?”

Jack spoke up, “Probably not. I’ll go and heat up something.”

Eric, from the couch, now embarrassed tried to sit back up under the weight that he accidentally came out to his grandmother on social media. 

“There’s so much to unpack with that.”

Coach laughed, familiar, deep and rich. “I’ll have you know that she told me to tell you, you have way more followers that Mrs. Maisy Johnson’s grand-daughter and you have a lot more sense.”

They sat in silence, while Jack puttered around in the kitchen, heating up one of the quiches that Eric had frozen for him during an earlier visit. Once the food heated, he set a plate in front of Eric and gave him a pointed look that brooked no argument. He ate a few bites before Coach started up again. 

“Look, I’m not trying to apologize for your mamma. And I’m not going to ask you to forgive her.” Coach rubbed his face for a moment. “I could have done some many things differently instead of just assuming…I don’t know. But I can tell you now is, I love you, I support you and I’m damn proud of you and I hope that you can forgive me one day.”

And all at once, Eric sees it. Jack is in the kitchen, hovering and silent. His father is sitting there on his boyfriend’s couch, looking like he wants to floor to open up before he keeps talking about his feelings, but he will keep going if he needs to. And there. His father is just as big of an awkward dork as his boyfriend is. Instead of running across campus to say goodbye, his father burned a pie and apparently jumped on a plane for a 1000 mile flight because they don’t know how to say “I love you” by halves.


	2. Building Dollhouses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My literal outline for this fic: 
> 
> Gen  
> Coach and Jack  
> Family bonding  
> future fic  
> proposal  
> supportive coach  
> Coach is proud of his son  
> Coach and Jack are similar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this as a gift for @wrathofthestag

“Son, why are you up with the birds?.” Richard asked as he walked into his kitchen. The sun was a few moments away from rising and the kitchen was still dark save one spotlight over the nook’s table. 

Jack set down the screwdriver and a small wooden box that he was glaring at. Señor Bun was sitting next to Jack, both ears attached once again. 

“I see that Suzanne got you that needle and thread you were looking for?” Rich grumbled towards Jack as he began his morning routine. Pull down the big mugs, reach and grab coffee pot, fill with water, scoop enough grounds of coffee - more given that he had company this morning.

Jack nodded. “I’m sorry, this was the only time I could work on this without Bittle seeing it.”

“Bittle.” Coach stated, a small smile on his face as he pressed the start button on the coffee pot. “You say Bittle in this house, three people answer.”

“I meant Eric, Bitty, ummm…Dicky?” Jack stammered. 

“I’m, what do you call it? I’m chirping you.”

Jack grimaced a little down at the box near his hands. 

“I don’t usually have company this early in the morning. Junior and Suzanne both would sleep until noon if you let them, but with you here, I bet Sue Sue will start buzzing around in an hour or so.”

Jack held up the box to the light and turned it, before going back to tightening screws here and there.

“Is that an oven?”

Jack nodded, clearly a man not needing to rush and fill a silence. Rich could understand that.

“I saw the plans online, I just needed to assemble it. I thought Bits…um Eric might like it.”

Rich looked at this man sitting in his kitchen, assembling a toy over before dawn because it would make Junior smile and that, that was just mighty nice. 

Jack looked at the box and then up at Rich and something came over his face. A steely resolve that probably carried that man far in life.   
“I intend to ask B…Eric to marry me.”

Rich chuckled, “Come upstairs, I got something to show you.”

They creaked up the stairs, tiptoeing quietly past the bedrooms even though Suzanne and Junior could both sleep through a parade of elephants, and towards the the last flight of stairs to the attic. 

Rich ushered Jack to the far corner and pulled off dusty sheet covering an oversized dollhouse that was done up in the same colors as the house they were currently standing in. The proportions were off, and Jack could see the years of renovations here and there. Newer wood for the porch, older chipped paint around the roof, uneven floors, and carefully placed windows.

“I first made this for Sue Sue when I proposed. I had asked her daddy for his blessing the week before and he straight looked me in the eye and told me that I couldn’t give her what she needed or deserved. So I went home, stewed for a bit, drank too much beer and then went on and built this house. I went back to Suzanne a few days later and got down on one knee and told her, “I ain’t got much now, but I will build you a house with these two hands and give you the world if you asked me to.

“Now, she is a woman that knew her mind. And so she looked me in the eye, just like her daddy did, I’m steadily sweating bullets, and told me, “I’m going to help you build that house, cause you obviously have never used a level in your life.”

Jack huffed a laugh as Rich pulled over a study milk crate to sit on. 

“I want to marry Eric.”

“I like how you are telling me, not asking.”

Jack knitted his brows together, “Is that something I should do?”

Rich leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs, dressed in his beat-up khakis and t-shirt. He never imagined this talk, but now he can’t see how it could have possible gone any differently.   
“Well, if you did, I couldn’t give you my permission.”  
Jack’s face with tight, “What?”

“Oh, no! I mean, I think you are a good man and even…I’m muckin’ this up. Let me try again.” Rich wiped his brow. “I can’t give you my permission because it’s not necessary and I don’t even deserve the honor.”

Jack was still frowned up, his face marble, but he was listening and that would have to be good enough. 

“Here’s the thing. Junior, like his mother, he knows his own mind. He’s brave and strong willed. And I have had to re-evaluate a lot of things in my head about that. But that boy, there? He has never asked for permission for anything.”

Jack pulled over another milk crate and sat down in front of the dollhouse. 

“I worried about Junior from early on. He was a beautiful baby and I was convinced that something was going to happen to him. He was small and sensitive and I just thought to myself, well, shit, the world is going to try and crush him. So, what did I do? I tried to toughen him up, just like my brothers told me to toughen up. I gave him a football and tried to urge him to be strong and fight and not look so fragile. But he says to me, “Daddy, I want to skate.” And before I could even form the word no, he had found him a coach, figured out how to get to and from practice on his own, had my mother helping him make pies to fund-raise for skates and costumes, and then, he went on and was excellent at it. Won awards, medals, we met the Governor twice. True story, I gave my varsity football team Junior’s full cross training routine to run. Two boys passed out, three threw up. I had to cut it short because I could see that there was no way for them to keep up with my 14 year old son.”

Jack smiled, and nodded along, “I’m not surprised. He can be very determined. I’ve seen it on the ice.”

“Exactly. When we moved to Madison, I asked him, “You want to play football? I thought, here we got a fresh start, we are getting away from anyone who looked at Junior out the side of their eye. I thought now was the chance for him to blend in and he goes, ‘Nope, I still want to skate, I’m joining a hockey league.’ And before I could say no, he’s used his prize money from ice skating to buy his own hockey skates and gear. 

“Then next thing I know, ‘Sir, I’m going to Samwell for college, I got a scholarship to play hockey.’ And then I’m loading up the car and we are driving 15 hours to drop him off at school. 

Jack is chuckling at the floor, eyes crinkled. “I’m really not surprised.”

Rich shrugged, “That boy is one of the strongest, most resilient and stubborn people on the planet. I wasted years trying to make him look tougher, without realizing that he was born with steel in his spine and fire in his eye. When I thought the world would crush him, he went and started blogging and found a world bigger than the one I was trying to keep him in. He thrived in spite of me.”

Rich rubbed at his eye, cleared his throat before continuing. 

“So, that was my long-winded way of saying, that boy is going to do what he pleases, and if it pleases him to marry you, then I’m damn proud to have you as a son-in-law.”

Jack opened his mouth, and closed it. Trying to figure out how best to respond. He took a breathe, “So, you think I need to build him an entire dollhouse to propose? 

Coach threw his head back and laughed, “No, that was my thing. You find something else, otherwise you are going to make me look bad twenty five years later.” 

Jack nodded, serious, “You are right, I need to build Señor Bun a multiunit condo high rise.”


	3. Judy's Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are sisters for? If not to call us out on our utter and complete bullshit. 
> 
> This is a reaction fic from the Year 3 season finale from the point of view of Bitty's aunt.

Judy stared at the television screen for about three seconds before she grabbed her cell phone from the nightstand and dialed, “Come on. Pick up, pick up, pick up.” 

“What is happening?” Travis asked, startled from his sleep.

Judy growled under her breath before she started furiously texting. After a moment of no response, she threw the phone down and jumped up out of bed, running to the closet.

“What is going on? Where are you going?” Travis asked, quickly becoming concerned as his wife flew around the bedroom, pulling off her nightshirt and rummaging for the first clean shirt she could reach.

“I gotta talk to Suzanne, now!”

Travis looked at the television screen. “Is that Dicky?”

“Yes. And now I need to go and intercept my sister before she runs her fool mouth because she didn’t stop and THINK.” She spun around on her heels, before flopping down on the bed to pull on the pants she wore earlier and had pulled from the hamper.

Travis blinked at the screen. “He’s kissing that Zimmermann boy.”

“Yes he is.”

“And…should he be kissing on live TV?”

Judy spun around, “Travis, do not make me throw my slipper at you.”

“What?”

“Let me explain it so you understand. Jack Zimmermann just ran the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl of Hockey. And he kissed his boyfriend. Last November, you slapped my ass and kissed me in a bar full of people when your football team scored a field goal when they were losing.” 

Travis dutifully bit his lip and conceded the point as Judy ran her fingers through her hair. “I love my sister. I do. She’s kind and generous. She’s a good person. But so help me, she can turn into a right bitch when she’s upset.”

Travis grunted as he followed behind Judy as she ran downstairs. “You don’t think she knew? I thought that she and Dicky were really close. She was just going on about how they are best friends and the cookout last week.”

“And that’s a heaping load of bullshit.” She said at the foot of the steps before spinning around and running back up the stairs. “And we just had a fight about that last week.” Judy continued, cell phone now in hand. “Children cannot be best friends with their parents, at least not yet. She’s his mother. Of course Dicky wants to love her and be comforted and have her get excited about his life, and that’s his God given right as her son. But he still can’t talk back to her. He’s terrified to upset her. Why would he tell her about Jack if he hasn’t even told her that he prefers to use my jam recipes?

“And even if they were best friends,” Judy called over her shoulder, “she’s been a really shitty friend these past few years.” Judy ran to the front door slipped a foot into a red flat. “Where is my other shoe?”

“But honey, they talk non stop. And did you check Titus’s bed?”

“About safe topics like pie and recipes. Look, I’m not saying she had to pry into Dicky’s life.” Judy gently nudged their giant behemoth of a golden retriever in his dog bed, revealing a slightly slobbery red shoe. “The boy deserved some room to grow. But now I’m worried that she’s going to see this and be hurt and then stupidly lash out about why was he hiding this from her. She’s going to accuse him of lying and put all that hurt and blame on him because that’s easier than admitting that she has been living with her head buried in her suburban dream housewife bubble.”

“Do you even have a plan? You are just going to run over there at 11pm at night?”

“I have a great plan. First, I’m going to drive to her house.” Judy pulled on the slightly wet shoe. “Then I’m going to steal her phone and sit on her if I have to.” She then ran to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of wine. And on further thought, grabbed the bottle of bourbon too. “Then I’m going to send a nice text to Dicky saying, ‘Honey, give me a call when everything settles to let me know you are safe.’ And hopefully that will give me enough time to get her blindingly drunk, and let her pour out every unfiltered thought of fear, anger, blame, and reproach because, unlike Dicky, I AM her best friend, and I can call her out on every single bit of her bullshit.”

With bottles in hand, keys in the other, she headed towards the door. “And then, when she’s gotten all of that bull out of the way, I’m going to remind her that she loves her talented, caring, beautiful son who loves her and didn’t know how to talk to her. I’m going to validate her real concerns - that it does hurt that she didn't know. And because, unlike Dicky, I don’t have any anything to lose, I will make sure that she understands that was her fault and what she does here can either open the bridge to a healthier and beautiful relationship or burn that bridge to ashes and you can’t come back to how it was after that."

Judy threw open the door. "And as icing on all of that, I’m going to remind her stupid fool behind that this is her one chance to actually plan her dream Zimmermann wedding. And if all that fails, I’m just going to shake her.”

Travis stood on the front porch and watched his wife hop into his truck.

“You’re a good little sister.” He called. 

“But I should have been a better aunt!” She called back as she pulled off.

He went to the kitchen and pulled out his cell and sent a text to Rick. “Judy’s on her way over. If I were you, I would not stand in her way.”


End file.
